Dreamsnake

Snake wondered if she were being herded to another crevasse, one lying in wait in the dark. From then on she walked more carefully, sliding one foot forward without shifting her weight until she was sure of solid ground.

When the next torch appeared she hardly noticed it. It did not cast enough light to help her make her way. The basket grew heavier and a reaction to all that had happened set in. Her knee ached fiercely and her shoulder hurt so much that she had to slide her hand beneath her belt and hug her arm in close against her body. As she scuffed along the untrustworthy path, she did not think she could have lifted her feet higher even if caution had allowed it.

Suddenly she was standing on a hillside in daylight beneath the strange twisted trees. She looked around blankly, then stretched out her left hand and stroked rough tree bark. She touched a fragile leaf with an abraded, broken-nailed fingertip.

Snake wanted to sit down, laugh, rest, sleep. Instead, she turned right and followed the hillside around, hoping the long tunnel had not led her half the hill or half the dome away from North’s camp. She wished North or the crazy had said something about where they had put Melissa.

The trees ended abruptly. Snake almost walked into the clearing before she stopped herself and pulled back into the shadows. Thick low round-leafed bushes carpeted the meadow with a solid layer of scarlet vegetation. On the natural mattress lay all the people she had seen with North, and more. They were all asleep, dreaming, Snake supposed. Most lay face up with their heads thrown back, their throats exposed, revealing puncture wounds and thin trickles of blood among many sets of scars. Snake looked from person to person, recognizing no one, until her search reached the other side of the clearing. There, touched by the shade of an alien tree, the crazy lay sleeping. His position differed from that of everyone else: he was face down, stripped to the waist, and he had stretched out his arms before him as if in supplication. His legs and feet were bare. As Snake skirted the clearing, moving closer to the crazy, she saw the many fang marks on his inner arms and behind his knees. So North had found an unexhausted serpent, and the crazy had finally got what he wanted.

But North was not in the clearing, and Melissa was not there either.

A well-used trail led back into the forest. Snake followed it cautiously, ready to slip between the trees at any warning. But nothing happened. She could even hear the rustling of small animals or birds or indescribably alien beasts as she padded barefoot over the hard ground.

The trail ended just above the entrance to the first tunnel. There, next to a large basket, alone with a dreamsnake in his hands, sat North.

Snake watched him curiously. He held the serpent in the safe way, behind the head so it could not strike. With the other hand he stroked its smooth green scales. Snake had noticed that North had no throat scars, and she had assumed that for himself he used the slower and more pleasurable method of taking the venom. But now the sleeves of his robe had fallen back and she could see quite clearly that his pale arms were unscarred too.

Snake frowned. Melissa was nowhere in sight. If North had put her back in the caves Snake might search futilely for days and still not find her. She had no strength left for a long search. She stepped out into the clearing.

“Why don’t you let it bite you?” she said.

North started violently, but did not lose control of the serpent. He stared at Snake with an expression of pure confusion. He glanced quickly around the clearing as if noticing for the first time that his people were not near him.

“They’re all asleep, North,” Snake said. “Dreaming. Even the one who brought me here.”

“Come to me!” North shouted, but Snake did not obey his commanding voice, and no one at all answered.

“How did you get out?” North whispered. “I’ve killed healers—they were never magic. They were as easy to kill as any creature.”

“Where’s Melissa?”

“How did you get out?” he screamed.

Snake approached him without any idea what she would do. It was true that North was not strong, but sitting down he was still nearly as tall as she was standing, and right now she was not strong either. She stopped in front of him.

North thrust the dreamsnake toward her, as if it would frighten her or bind her with desire to his will. Snake was so close that she reached out and stroked the serpent with the tip of her finger.

“Where’s Melissa?”

“She’s mine,” he said. “She doesn’t belong in the world outside. She belongs here.”

But his pale eyes, flicking sideways, betrayed him. Snake followed his gaze: to the huge basket, nearly as long as she was tall and half that deep. Snake went to it and carefully lifted its lid. She took one involuntary backward step, drawing in a long angry breath. The basket was nearly filled with a solid mass of dreamsnakes. She swung toward North, furious.

“How could you?”

“It was what she needed.”